Description

Poetry. "OLD NEWS is a real city. Many persons on the pavements. A picture teacher. A brief history of Spirit-matter. A brief history of a lost dog. Total Assets: a flash card with the word friend on it. Professional History: picking through the garbage with Gabriel García Márquez. Often it is permitted to return to a factory. A car goes by and it doesn't explode. What's it say to all these dead people? White House for rent, 2 bdrms 1 bath."—Eric Baus

"What immediately strikes me about OLD NEWS is the commingling of journalistic brevity with everyday vernacular. This combination naturally pulls irony to the surface, which is refreshing in an era when popular culture's version of irony bombards us. Oftentimes, pop culture leads us to believe that irony isn't natural and must be produced for us in the form of a sitcom. In turn, this manufactured irony makes it harder to discern true irony when we encounter it. OLD NEWS is journalism—objective and informative—but it is journalism written by someone who knows, whether it is 1923 or 2011, what's at the core of everyday life."—Stan Mir

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Author Bio

Ryan Eckes was born in Northeast Philadelphia in 1979. He is the author of two poetry collections published by Furniture Press Books, OLD NEWS (2011) and VALU-PLUS (2015). More of his writing can be found in the book when i come here (Plan B Press, 2007), on his blog, and in various journals. Along with Stan Mir, he organizes the Chapter & Verse Reading Series. He works as an adjunct English professor at Temple University and other colleges.